Different strokes for cellphone folks

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Forget brain tumours -- it could be strokes that mobile phone addicts will have to worry about. The Bristol University team of academics that revealed earlier this year that mobile phones heated up the brain (but couldn't find anything wrong with that) have now begun a new research project to examine a link between mobile phone use and higher blood pressure. High blood pressure is believed to cause 70 per cent of all strokes in Britain. Lest we get overexcited, there is actually little evidence for such a link yet and team leader Dr Alan Preece, a reader in oncology at the university, went to ground today because he had nothing to say. After all the study has hardly started. Preece is following up German research which last year tentatively showed that while a phone was switched on a user experienced higher blood pressure. Whether this leads to any long term impacts is not clear from the Sunday Mirror, who ran the story over the weekend. But already the Stoke Association are warning against the overuse of mobiles, in case you weren't getting worried. While the link between health problems and mobile phone use has yet to proven conclusively, back in August a German mobile phone user was beaten to death with a beer bottle after refusing to switch off his phone in a pub. ® See related stories:Mobile phones fry your brainsMobile phones are a pain in the neckMobile phone tumour link is tenuous, says Motorola